


Love is for Dead Men

by onlyhereforthesmut



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Denial of Feelings, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Hospitals, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Unresolved Sexual Tension, What Was I Thinking?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:15:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24767569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlyhereforthesmut/pseuds/onlyhereforthesmut
Summary: He was unconscious when she found him. He was slumped against the alley wall, his phone resting in the palm of his limp hand. Blood soaked his shirt.This is a hurt/comfort story, but it's not one of the ones that end with declarations of love. It's kinda sad actually. Nobody dies though, so it sort of has a happy ending.
Relationships: Jonathan Crane/Pamela Isley
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I got into this parring about a week ago and I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO STOP THINKING ABOUT THEM. I don't know how I got here or how long I worked on this. Send help.

He was unconscious when she found him. He was slumped against the alley wall, his phone resting in the palm of his limp hand. Blood soaked his shirt. 

Only 20 minutes ago Ivy had gotten a call from Johnathon Crane, aka The Scarecrow. In all honesty, she had picked up out of boredom more than anything else, but that all went out the window when he started talking. His voice was raspy and strained as he told her how to get to his apartment, where the spare key was hidden, and which floorboard his research notes were hidden under. “I know you’ll do my toxin justice” he had said, “I’d rather you have it than the authorities” he had said. Then he had gone silent. No amount of shouting had gotten him to respond. 

With her network of plants around Gotham, Ivy was able to find him relatively quickly; but she hadn’t thought it would be this bad. Using her vines to cut through Crane’s blood soaked costume, she counted at least three bullet wounds in his chest. An ambulance was out of the question, so she did the next best thing she could think of. Using her plants to carefully pick him up, she headed towards the nearest hospital. 

\- - - - - -

The first thing Crane became aware of was the throbbing pain in his chest. The second thing Crane became aware of was the beeping of the heart monitor he was attached to. He wondered briefly if he was dead, but he reasoned that there would be no hospital equipment in Hell, so that left only one possibility: he was alive.


	2. Chapter 2

How? The last thing he remembered was that he had been breaking in somewhere, but it went wrong. In a state of panic, one of the guards had fired wildly into the darkness. Crane had been hit in the confusion. He remembered dragging himself out of the building knowing he was going to die. He remembered shakily picking up his phone and calling-. Oh no. Ivy.

Crane’s eyes shot open to find himself in a hospital room covered in plants. Vines climbed the walls and wrapped around the various equipment he was hooked up to. Small bushes grew in the corners, and the blood bag he was hooked up to was covered in flowers. Shit. He had already given her the means to get to his research, so why did she take him to a hospital? What did she need him alive for? His mind raced, imagining all the forms of pain she was probably going to inflict on him. He had to get out of here. 

Crane sat up, and immediately fell back down as pain spiked through his chest. Right. That. He gingerly pulled up the hospital gown he was wearing(thankfully he was also still in his pants) and inspected his wounds. From the looks of it, some sort of operation had been done, and it had been stitched back up and bandaged. He sat up slower this time, careful not to pull anything, and experimentally tried to move his way towards the side of the hospital bed. It hurt like hell, but it was probably better than what Ivy planed to do to him. Crane and Ivy had never truly gotten along, but he liked to think that over the years of working together that had formed a begrudging friendship. She seemed to hate him for reasons he didn’t understand. Crane never hated Ivy, not really. When they had first met he had even been attracted to her. Her wit, her charm, her scientific mind-but now was not the time to think about such things. The past was past. 

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and pushed himself onto the ground, pulling the blood tube out of his arm as he did so. Luckily, he could stand, which meant he hadn’t been unconscious for too long. Unluckily, his head was swimming and he had to brace himself against the wall to keep his balance. Carefully, slowly, he made his way across the room to the door and opened it. Crane half expected to see her there, waiting for him, but the doorway was empty. Walking out into the hall he noticed that the vines were everywhere. They clung to the walls, holding chairs and equipment in place. There were even some people tangled up in the mess. He probably would have pitied them if he was able to anymore.

Making his way down the hall, Crane became aware of the sounds of police sirens and gunshots. He found the nearest uncovered window and looked outside. There she was. Poison Ivy in all her glory, holding back a wave of police officers. She was strangely beautiful like this, moving effortlessly through the cops as her plants ripped them limb from limb. But more importantly, she was distracted. Crane made his way over to one of the people trapped in the vines. “How do I get out of here?” he asked and he pulled the vines away from the poor bastard’s mouth. “D-down the stairs in the next h-hallway” the nurse stuttered.

Going down the stairs was not easy by any means. Every step sent a jolt of pain through his torso and he fought to stay continuous long enough to reach the next landing. Halfway down he heard the gunfire stop. Shit. The vines on the floor started to move towards his feet. SHIT. He didn’t have the strength to fight then as they rooted him to the floor. Maybe he was dead and his punishment was being endlessly tormented by her. And as soon as she entered his thought he saw her. 

“Leaving so soon, Jonathan?” He winced at her use of his real name as Ivy walked towards him. “I already gave you my research, what more do you want from me? To torture me? To kill me yourself?” he snapped. To Crane’s complete surprise, she stopped. Ivy remembered the first time she had met Crane. He was a fiercely intelligent man, renowned at the top of his field until he went “insane”. She remembered the first time she had seen him emerge from a cloud of fear gas, terrifying and beautiful. She remembered crushing the flare of emotion she had when he was around. And here he was, weak and restrained, thinking she was going to kill him. 

“I save your life and the first thought that comes to your head is that I want to hurt you?” Ivy demanded. “Well I see no explanation as to why you would have ‘saved’ me” Crane shot back. 

“Then why did you call me?” 

Crane was at a loss for words. He didn’t really know why he had decided to call Ivy in what he thought were his last moments. “I knew you would be able to use my research” he said, avoiding her gaze. “You could turn it into a weapon no one could rival, not even the Batman” He knew she didn’t fully believe him, but he was too tired to care. His chest throbbed and sleep was calling him. He didn’t know if he would wake up again, but he let himself go anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

When he woke up again, Jonathan Crane was in his own bed. He almost thought he had dreamed it all, but the TV in the corner kept shouting footage of a hospital overrun by plant life. He almost never used that TV, why was it on now? The answer came to him when Ivy stepped into the room. She was carrying bandages and rubbing alcohol. Wonderful. He almost wished she killed him rather than having to take care of him. He felt like a child. 

Ivy watched the Crane try to sit up. His face contorted in pain and he slumped back down, glowering at being unable to do such a simple thing. “I have to change your bandages” she reminded him as his scowl turned to her. His expression changed ever so slightly. 

Crane struggled to control his heartbeat as Ivy lifted his hospital gown up and brushed her fingers against his chest. She stripped away the old bandages, to reveal the mess of tissue underneath. It was starting to scab over, but it was far from healed. Crane fought the urge to scream as Ivy poured some of the rubbing alcohol on his wound. She put her other hand on his shoulder to steady him.

Both of them were surprised by the gesture. Crane didn’t know Ivy was able to empathize with anything other than plants, not to mention him. Ivy didn’t know she was capable of affection either. Last time she checked her heart was as cold and hard as it always was. 

She didn’t move her hand. 

He didn’t ask her to. 

She finished changing his bandages in silence. Then, as suddenly as the moment had started, it was gone, and Ivy was back across the room. Crane could still feel her hands on him.

They spent about a week like this. Ivy would leave food for him and change his bandages, and Crane would spend most of the day sleeping, convinced that he would not wake up again. They didn’t talk much, only the occasional greeting or request to change the channel. On the eighth day, Crane was surprisingly alert when Ivy came in with the bandages. He was sitting up and carefully feeling around his chest to assess the damage. He had apparently taken his gown off for better access. Ivy had seen him shirtless when she had watched the doctors take the bullets out of his chest, but this was different. 

She gently put a hand on his breast bone and pushed him back down. He didn’t resist. Ivy took her time applying the new bandages, keeping her hand planted on his chest as she applied the rubbing alcohol to his wound. He was healing nicely. She had just finished applying the gauze when he grabbed her hand. She stopped, turning to look at him. 

“Stay” 

Crane was looking up at her with an expression that she couldn’t read. Wordlessly, Ivy swung her legs up only to bed and allowed Crane to put his arm around her as she lay down. With her head pressed against his chest, she could hear his heartbeat. If they had been younger, maybe this kind of contact would have sent them into a fit giggles. If they had chosen different paths, maybe they would have held each other close and whispered sweet nothings in each other's ears. Instead, Crane just stared, unfocused, at the ceiling. Ivy watched his chest move as he breathed. She had the urge to press her lips against him. She did not. 

Crane hadn’t believed she would stay. He didn’t know why he said it. He didn’t know how long the woman tucked against his side would wait before leaving. He found that he didn’t care. Thought swirled in his head as he stared up at the ceiling. She had saved his life, and showed no signs of wanting to kill him. She had taken over a hospital to make sure he got the bullets out of him. She had played nurse for over a week. She had not killed him when he asked her to stay. She was laying next to him. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought she was fond of him. But he did know better. Poison Ivy did not love, and neither did The Scarecrow. He had accepted long ago that romance was not an option for this lifestyle. He almost wished he hadn’t. 

When Crane woke up, the bed was empty. He sat up and surprisingly found that he could move without too much discomfort. He got out of bed. It was slow going, but his muscles remembered how to walk well enough to get him out of the bedroom. He found the apartment empty. The only sign that there had ever been another person there was the bandages that had been set out on the coffee table.

The next time he saw her was in the heat of battle. She was as cold and ruthless as she always was, tearing people apart with the flick of her wrist. They did not speak of it. She knows they may never. He can live with that.


End file.
